“You wanted to know who and what I am? I’m a killer. I kill with my cunt.”

The advent of the new year means the periodic reemergence of a rando or two creeping out of the woodwork. Some guy I dated on and off when I was a teenager — over ten years ago, I’m old! — sent an angry/insulting/cryptic message about me to C. I read it today: not particularly personal, more of a blanket misogynist insult, nothing particularly interesting. I’m unmoved.

What’s more interesting is the strange idea that we’re all characters in other people’s life stories. In some people’s stories (like the exes I keep in touch with) I am a valuable, even beloved supporting actor. I’m happy that I can close my eyes and imagine their faces with affection, too. But, of course, memories are fictions. I must be someone’s villain. Well, apparently, I definitely am.

I don’t know anything about him/ his life now. I think he messaged me a year ago but I wasn’t interested in keeping in touch. No bad blood, just not interested. So often, for my male exes, I’ve been an object onto which they project their desires/fears. That makes me infinitely hate-able. If am not their saviour, I am a cruel judge bent on their destruction. C & I had a long talk about memory last night, wondering how many completely different people we are in other people’s estimation and how many different people we have already been in each other’s lives.

No one is ever really knowable. C has come the closest over the last seven years. It takes longer than a lifetime to really know someone; to recognize them. That’s what is so incredible about the deepening intimacy of long-term relationships/ marriage. Getting that little bit closer to knowing and being known. How many women have I been and will be? It doesn’t bother me that I’m sometimes a villain. Sometimes it’s warranted. I accepted a long time ago (as a dabbler in misanthropy) that the world is full of hatred, shit, and misery, with love and laughter as rare respites. At least I know that even though I don’t always play a good character in the lives of others, I at least make a good story.

mood:

“You wanted to know who and what I am? I’m a killer. I kill with my cunt.”

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[…] them and making some multimedia works on the relationship between the internet and memory. Remember that weirdo that sent a mysogynistic message about me to C something in the realm of six months ago? Yeah, me neither, so I found the archived post […]